Charitable giving by households in the United States is significant. More than two thirds of households self-report giving. Private giving represents more than 2% of total gross domestic product (GDP) and is a significant factor in funding the nonprofit sector. This research note documents giving across U.S. states. It adds detailed data and analysis supporting and supplementing research that identifies personal income, capital gains, religious group affiliation, age, volunteerism, and educational attainment as the main factors affecting household giving.

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With federal devolution and the ascendancy of community-based development strategies to center stage, the role of community development corporations (CDCs) has gained significance. This analysis focuses on programmatic and organizational attributes of CDCs that affect community development success. Success is defined as a CDC's contribution to the improvement of residents' access to financial resources, physical resources, human resources, economic opportunities, and political influence. Based on previous studies and our own analysis of three case studies, we posit four key factors in CDC success: mission, organizational competency, political capital, and funding. Analysis of the experiences of the case study organizations reveal the specific ways in which these factors operate and the influence of varied contextual factors.The revitalization of distressed communities has served as a focal point for national and local initiatives for more than four decades. Each policy and program effort has generated a host of experiences and commentary. What is unique about recent discourse is the tacit acceptance of federal devolution and the ascendancy of local community-based strategies to center stage. In this new policy context, community-based organizations in general, and community development corporations (CDCs) specifically, are expected to play more active and central roles in planning and implementing community revitalization efforts. Some commentators suggest that CDCs can serve as the foundation for community-based decision making and policy implementation (Clavel, Pitt, & Yin, 1997;Goetz, 1993).The recent strategic planning activities carried out under President Clinton's Empowerment Zone and Enterprise Community Program (EZ/EC) relied heavily on CDCs to represent and articulate community needs and priorities. Now that the funds for EZ/EC projects have been released to local governments, CDCs are playing a key role in carrying out this national initiative. There is little doubt that these organizations will garner a large share of the praise and criticism that arise from EZ/EC efforts. Nevertheless, it is critical that we develop a better understanding of how CDCs can foster community revitalization. This article seeks to further our understanding of the potential of CDCs to engage in effective community-based initiatives by identifying some of the critical factors that influence successful CDC efforts.

This essay illustrates how considerations of a region's dynamic industrial structure may assist public policymakers, particularly with regard to the formulation of state technology policies. The essay explores one state's (New Hampshire) economic development to accomplish three main purposes: to evaluate generalizations regarding the importance of geographical concentration on industrial performance, the refinement of common notions of government participation in state development, and to suggest guidelines for using an enhanced understanding of state industrial dynamics to lay the foundation for public policy initiative. The analysis suggests that state policymakers can make use of models of area/regional competitive advantage, particularly Michael Porter's "diamond" framework from The Competitive Advantage of Nations, but they must do so carefully because each state has a unique economic and political history that shapes its industrial structure and the possibilities for economic growth.